A Shelter In The Storm

     I write this almost three weeks behind in my journal-ling.  I also went 13 days without riding Amiga.  After the ridding clinic I was so overwhelmed with information and changes I needed to make I just kind of shut down.  I was also way behind on school work which was actually becoming more
                                                                                   time consuming
     Sunrise over a newly planted field much in                 and demanding.
need of rain so that it will germinate and grow.                      Joe was
anxious to get the picnic shelter done, and since I had been pushing to do the project in the first place, and because it had become a lot BIGGER than    we originally planned,  I felt I needed to help out.  Joe could also benefit from my input on how to do parts of it.  Somehow my daily Bible reading also fell to the way side and a storm in my spiritual life started brewing.  By the end of September, I was a mess....over worked, stressed, unhappy and with no end or relief in sight.

     I did get several pictures of the work we did around here and will use those, with captions, to fill you in. 
             We finally did get the storm/picnic shelter done!!! 

     There were some large cracks in the foundation wall that needed filling in.
     So Joe and Dan mixed up some concrete











And squeezed it into the cracks.









    
    
     While they were in the concrete mixing mode, we filled in a hole in the foundation wall by the living room.
                                                      And then proceeded to the barn to get

the chunk of wall at the corner that had come loose, to fit snug once again.





     The next concrete job (the floor of the picnic shelter) was much larger, so we rented a mixer for it.  Joe used the trailer to haul the bags of concrete.


        Dan mixed the concrete.

 Being careful to get it the right consistency

And then poured it on the floor of the picnic shelter.

Joe would then get it spread and all smoothed out.

     Just before the rains came, they finished the floor and then I covered
    windows and doors to keep the water, chickens, cats and dog out.

     Kaysha approved of the floor once the concrete set up.

Now we were able to finish the interior walls.


 Next came the corner trim....which was a bit challenging because some of the corners were not exactly square.  We started with 1X3's and 1X4's but had to move up to wider boards to get them to cover everything.

Britney was kept busy with painting trim and then hitting the chicken coop door and other bare spots with a few coats of paint.

We put sills on the windows and since we had all the unused 1x3's and 1X4's that were painted white, we put trim around the windows.  Of course we didn't quite have enough, so we had to buy and paint 3 more to finish all the trim.

And then Britney and I planted Day Lilies around the foundation after I had put more dirt up to the foundation to be sure water would drain away from the sub terrain storm cellar walls.
















Then I put rock under the roof drip line since so much dirt had splashed up on the white walls during the last little rain shower.

After that we raked the ground, planted seed, covered it with a light layer of dirt and then fenced it all off.  Here is the finished shelter (minus the three trim boards around the door).

The picnic table had been moved in, but we had to put up fencing inside the shelter to keep the chickens from  getting up on the window sills and flying down to the grass seed below.

We have had a few cool days the end of September so the flowers have been revitalized. 












A nap in the sun is a welcomed event in the cool, crisp air of the afternoon.  Wish I had time to join Abbey.

                   I also need to take time to enjoy the sun sets. 
        Notice that all the corn at our neighboring Beck's has been
        harvested already.  It was a very early harvest this year.